Remembering Laura Pollán, Cuba's Lady in White eleven years after her killing

They can either kill us, put us in jail or release them. We will never stop marching no matter what happens." - Laura Inés Pollán Toledo (2010) 

Laura Inés Pollán Toledo, February 13, 1948 – October 14, 2011

Eleven years ago today, Cuban opposition leader and human rights defender Laura Pollán died under circumstances that Cuban dissident and medical doctor Oscar Elias Biscet described as "death by purposeful medical neglect" in the custody of Cuban State Security at the Hospital Calixto García in Havana.
Laura Inés Pollán Toledo, a courageous woman spoke truth to power and protested in the streets of Cuba demanding an amnesty for Cuban political prisoners. She had been a school teacher, before her husband was jailed for his independent journalism in 2003 along with more than 75 other civil society members. Laura was greatly admired both inside and outside of the island.
 

But when one opposes the regime in Cuba not only is their physical life in danger, but their reputation is systematically slandered. The dictatorship claimed that she was a stateless "traitor." She became ill and died within the space of a week under circumstances that raise the question of foul play by Castro's secret police.

Following her death the official media of the dictatorship began a slander campaign asserting that she was a common criminal.

Following brutal repression, in an effort to prevent them from marching through the streets of Havana in 2010, Laura Pollan directly and nonviolently challenged the regime declaring, "we will never give up our protest. The authorities have three options — free our husbands, imprison us or kill us."  

Unfortunately beginning in 2010 a new and deadlier pattern of oppression presented itself with the extrajudicial death of Orlando Zapata Tamayo. 

Laura Pollán's "criminal" behavior was to start the Ladies in White movement after the Black Cuban Spring of 2003 and nonviolently challenged the Castro regime in the streets of Havana at the beginning, and eventually across the island. Laura reached out to the wives, mothers, sisters, and daughters of the 75 prisoners of conscience jailed in March of 2003 along with her husband and they carried out a sustained nonviolent campaign that after nine years obtained the freedom of their loved ones.

Just like she didn't break up the Ladies in White when her husband came home. Because she recognized that the laws had not changed, that political prisoners remained behind bars, and that she would continue her human rights activism, the Castro regime did away with her on October 14, 2011.

Today, the current leader of the Ladies in White, Berta Soler, paid homage to her predecessor over FaceBook.

 

"HOMAGE: Ladies in White, we remember our leader Laura Pollan and we'll continue in the streets."

 

Let us remember that Laura put into action over eight years in Cuba nonviolent resistance to tyranny.

"They tried to silence 75 voices, but now there are more than 75 voices shouting to the world the injustices the government has committed." (2004) "We fight for the freedom of our husbands, the union of our families. We love our men." (2005)

"They can either kill us, put us in jail or release them. We will never stop marching no matter what happens." (2010) "We are going to continue. We are fighting for freedom and human rights.” (September 24, 2011)

"As long as this government is around there will be prisoners because while they've let some go, they've put others in jail. It is a never-ending story." (2011)

“If we must give our own lives in pursuit of the freedom of our Cuba that it be what God wants.” (September 24, 2011)

"We are not going to stop. If you have imprisoned our sisters thinking that we would give up, they are mistaken. We are very united (...) all the women's movements are very close." (October 2, 2011)

"My life has changed a lot, now I have learned to love the country much more, the prisoners, the humanity. That's how I have so much work, that I don't have much time to think about myself, what really satisfies me, in short, I owe myself to other more important tasks. Now I understand much more, before I could not understand these things, you have to live and feel them to be able to dedicate soul heart and life to this beautiful cause." (2011)

The regime in Cuba is the most misogynist government in all of Latin America. Women who speak out and exercise their fundamental rights are regularly slandered, physically assaulted and sometimes die under suspicious circumstances as Laura did eleven years ago today.

Cuban Missile Crisis at 60: Cuban dictator twice called on Soviet Union to launch pre-emptive nuclear strikes on the United States

Fidel Castro requested a nuclear first strike on the United States twice.

Fidel Castro on at least two occasions called on the Soviet Union to launch a preemptive nuclear strike on the United States and plunge the world into thermonuclear war. The first time was during the October 1962 Missile Crisis in a letter to Nikita Khrushchev and the second time in the early 1980s when Fidel Castro again pressed the Soviets hard for a nuclear strike against the United States.

Following the end of the Cuban Missile Crisis  Ernesto "Che" Guevara denounced the outcome. [UNESCO that claims to work to "prevent violent extremism through education and media literacy" and education for peace is promoting the writings of Ernesto "Che" Guevara ]. Che was disappointed that the 1962 Missile Crisis was resolved peacefully.

"Here is the electrifying example of a people prepared to suffer nuclear immolation so that its ashes may serve as a foundation for new societies. When an agreement was reached by which the atomic missiles were removed, without asking our people, we were not relieved or thankful for the truce; instead we denounced the move with our own voice."

The Castro regime's second request for preemptive nuclear war became public knowledge on September 21, 2009 and the newspaper of record The New York Times quoted the source:

Andrian A. Danilevich, a Soviet general staff officer from 1964 to ’90 and director of the staff officers who wrote the Soviet Union’s final reference guide on strategic and nuclear planning is quoted in the early 1980s, saying that Mr. Castro “pressed hard for a tougher Soviet line against the U.S. up to and including possible nuclear strikes.” The general staff, General Danilevich continued, “had to actively disabuse him of this view by spelling out the ecological consequences for Cuba of a Soviet strike against the U.S.”

In 1962 when the Russians refused to go along with the Castro regime's call for nuclear war the Cuban dictatorship responded by contracting Nazis. Fidel Castro personally recruited former Nazi SS Waffen members to train Cuban troops in 1962 and that he also reached out to Otto Ernst Remer and Ernst-Wilhelm Springer, in Germany's extreme right to purchase weapons. 

Bodo Hechelhammer, historical investigations director at the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND)—the German foreign-intelligence agency, in an interview with German newspaper Die Welt said: “Evidently, the Cuban revolutionary army did not fear contagion from personal links to Nazism, so long as it served their own objectives.”

This is the first in a series of reflections on the 60th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

On this day in 1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis began when the US discovered nuclear missiles placed by the Soviet Union in Cuba. Learn how Fidel Castro acted as a spoiler sabotaging peace efforts, pushing for nuclear war during the greatest nuclear crisis the world has ever known. https://t.co/xduF88eyI0

— Center for a Free Cuba (@cubacenter) October 13, 2022

October 10, 1868 Grito de Yara's Double Significance for Freedom in Cuba: How Castroism continues to betray both of them

Independence and Emancipation 

The Grito de Yara on October 10, 1868 has a double significance for Cubans, and Black Cubans specifically. It was the initial cry for independence that marked the start of the "Ten Years War" that seriously challenged Spanish colonial rule, and the institution of slavery. 

 

 This day marked an immediate and concrete start of liberation.

 

Plantation and slave owner Carlos Manuel de Céspedes del Castillo, sounded a bell that gathered enslaved black Cubans together to begin the work day, but on October 10, 1868 he freed them instead.

 

Carlos Manuel de Céspedes del Castillo

 

This slave owner then invited them, if they chose, to take up arms and join him in a new struggle for independence. The nearest town to his plantation was called Yara and this cry for freedom became known as the "Grito de Yara." 

 

Carlos Manuel not only promised independence from Spain, but the abolition of slavery in Cuba. 

 

This was a day of choosing for black Cuban slaves and over the next decade they fought for freedom, together with free blacks, and white Cubans. 

 

On October 10, 1878 in the Pact of Zanjón slaves that had taken part on either side of the fight were freed, but those who remained on the sidelines would not be freed until October 7, 1886. 

 

General Martínez Campos and General Antonio Maceo meet

 

Not everyone agreed with the pact. General Antonio Maceo was summoned by Martínez Campos to Los Mangos de Baraguá on March 15, 1879. General Maceo refused to accept the conditions established in the agreement. He demanded full independence and the complete abolition of slavery. This became known as "La Protesta de Baraguá" where  General Antonio Maceo told his Spanish counterpart: "We do not understand each other". 

 

Juan Gualberto Gómez Ferrer, a free Cuban black, and leader of the independence struggle defended the rights of Black Cubans for his entire career. In 1892 he founded the “Directory of Colored Societies” - the same year that slavery ended in Cuba. 

 

 The Central Directory of Societies of Color would spend the next seventy six years pushing for Black advancement in Cuba.   

 

It would be a fair assessment to define October 10, 1868 as not only the beginning of Cuban independence, but a day to celebrate black liberation from 373 years of bondage beginning with the arrival of the first African slaves to Cuba in 1513. Over 900,000 Africans would be taken from West Africa and brought to Cuba over 350 years.

Juan Gualberto transmitted the order that began the 2nd war of independence on February 24, 1895. Gómez Ferrer was captured on February 28, 1895 and imprisoned by the Spanish for three years. Upon his release he went to New York and continued the struggle for Cuban independence from exile.

 

"In December 1898, he accompanied Major General Calixto García to Washington, D.C. as a member of the commission sent to negotiate for funds necessary for the Cuban Liberation Army and recognition of the rebels" by the United States.

 

 In 1900 Juan Gualberto Gómez Ferrer was elected to represent Oriente in the Constituent Assembly.  

 

Following independence he was deeply critical of the Platt Amendment. The United States military had occupied Cuba from 1898 to 1902, and the bitter price of independence was accepting the Platt Amendment in the 1901 Cuban Constitution, which permitted U.S. interference in Cuban internal affairs to preserve order and protect American interests, put into question the status of Cuba's Isle of Pines as a possible U.S. possession. 

 

Gómez Ferrer held seats in the Cuban House of Representatives (1914–1917) and Senate (1917–1925), representing Havana. 

Juan Gualberto Gómez Ferrer

Between 1886 and 1962 in Cuba, free black people were able to organize in a network of societies founded by Juan Gualberto Gómez Ferrer to press for black social, economic and political advancement in Cuba.

Cuba during the later colonial period, and during the Republic wrestled with the legacy of slavery, and racism, but it was part of the public discussion – with its high and low points.   

Ugly periods, such as the 1912 race war, and private discrimination persisted, but so did black agency to advocate for each other.

General Pedro Ivonnet Dufort was a Mambi officer killed in 1912

Political leaders had to answer to these black societies, and provide patronage to them, and in a vibrant free press, and in publishing houses debates on race, and racism, and the need for redress took place.

The Central Directory of Societies of Color, founded by Gómez Ferrer in 1892 succeeded in lobbying for the 1940 Constitution to address racism in Articles 10,  20,  74, and 102.

And although incomplete and too slow, progress had been made in the 1940 Constitution, and in labor legislation to provide greater inclusion for black Cubans over the next 20 years.

All of this came crashing down with Castro’s communist revolution.  

“Of the 256 Negro societies in Cuba, many  have had to close their doors and others are in death agony. One can truthfully say, and this is without the slightest exaggeration, that the Negro movement in Cuba died at the hands of Sr. Fidel Castro.” … “Yet this is the man who had the cynical impudence to visit the United States in 1960 for the purpose of censuring American racial discrimination. Although this evil obviously exists in the United States, Castro is not precisely the man to offer America solutions, nor even to pass judgement,” reported Cuban nationalist Juan René Betancourt in his essay in the NAACP's publication

The Crisis in 1961. 

Some of the more prominent clubs that are still remembered are the Sociedad Buena Vista ( Buena Vista Social Club), Amantes del Progreso, Unión Fraternal, Progreso, Nueva Era, and El Club Atenas.

Juan René Betancourt

Between 1898 and 1959 the relationship between Black-Americans and Black-Cubans was based on their race and being black minorities.  The relationship between the two diasporas ended when the Castro regime ended autonomous black civil society in 1962. 

It was replaced by Castro and his white revolutionary elite allying with Black elites in the United States, and Africa. The Castro regime would selectively target black elites in the NAACP, the Nation of Islam, and representatives of newly liberated nations in Africa. This was exemplified by Fidel Castro meeting with Malcolm X on September 19, 1960.

The elimination of Afro-Cubans from this dynamic demonstrated how the new communist revolutionary elite transformed what race meant within the island while at the same time turning it into a political tool outside of Cuba to advance the Castro regime's communist agenda.

This ended black agency in Cuba for decades, and replaced it with a policy based in obedience, submission, and gratitude to the white revolutionary elite, and this was reflected in official propaganda with racist tropes.

From the Castro regime's publication Verde Olivo 1, no. 29 (October 1, 1960) 

Cuban blacks today that would have been political leaders in the 1940s and 1950s are dissidents persecuted, hunted and killed by the secret police.

The regime claims there is no racism in Cuba while poverty disproportionately impacts black people, and black voices are silenced. 

Tonight Cuba's Cry for Freedom is once again being heard across the island. 154 years after the Grito de Yara there is a new Grito de Libertad.

“Libertad, libertad”, le grita el pueblo de Bejucal a los representantes de la dictadura que intentan convencer a la gente para que abandonen la protesta. #Cuba está en la calle esta noche! pic.twitter.com/DFA7WwvuUu

— Mario J. Pentón (@MarioJPenton) October 11, 2022

Note to His Admirers: Comandante Ernesto "Che" Guevara is still dead and his ideas remain toxic

 "I'd like to confess, at that moment I discovered that I really like killing." Ernesto "Che" Guevara, in a letter to his father after executing an unarmed man.  

Che Guevara executed for trying to overthrow Bolivian govt on October 9, 1967

Ideas have consequences and those ideas are sometimes represented in iconic images. This is the case of the image of Ernesto "Che" Guevara and his toxic philosophy of political action that others seek to emulate.  He embraced hatred and dehumanization of the other as the means to carry out what he thought necessary actions.

“Blind hate against the enemy creates a forceful impulse that cracks the boundaries of natural human limitations, transforming the soldier in an effective, selective and cold killing machine. A people without hate cannot triumph against the adversary.”

Guevara's claim to fame was the role he played alongside Fidel and Raul Castro in installing a totalitarian communist dictatorship using violent means, including terrorism, in Cuba then attempting to spread this model using violent means to Africa and Latin America. His efforts failed.

Castro executed thousands of Cubans, locked up hundreds of thousands of Cubans, built a police state, with the assistance of the KGB and the East German Stasi, and imposed revolutionary terror to consolidate power. Credible and conservative estimates of the Castro regime’s death toll against Cuban nationals ran from 35,000 to 141,000, with a median of 73,000. In the beginning executions were televised in Cuba to terrorize the populace.  

Che Guevara addressing the United Nations on December 11, 1964

Che Guevara addressing the United Nations on December 11, 1964 did not mince words: "We must say here something that is a well-known truth and that we have always asserted before the whole world: executions? Yes, we have executed people; we are executing people and shall continue to execute people as long as it is necessary. We know what the result of a losing battle would be and the worms also have to know what the result of the lost battle is today in Cuba."

Ernesto "Che" Guevara with a Cuban delegation visited Mainland China and met with Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, and other high ranking Chinese officials in November 1960 to discuss conditions in Cuba and in Latin America, and the prospects for communist revolution in the Western Hemisphere.

Guevara meets Mao Ze Dong in November 1960.

Mao Ze Dong caused the deaths of an estimated 45 million Chinese people in his communist project through famine and mass executions.  He is the greatest mass murderer of the 20th century, and someone Guevara stayed allied to, even after the Castro regime cooled relations with Beijing siding with Moscow.

Months after the world came perilously close to a nuclear holocaust in October 1962, Che Guevara was disappointed. The Argentine declared in November 1962: "What we affirm is that we must proceed along the path of liberation even if this costs millions of atomic victims.”

Ernesto Guevara was executed  summarily on October 9, 1967 in La Higuera, Bolivia after he and his band of guerrillas were captured trying to overthrow the legitimate government there and install a Castro style dictatorship. His legacy at the time was already one of blood and terror that should be lamented not celebrated.

Comandante Ernesto "Che" Guevara is still dead, his ideas are still toxic, and need to be buried along with him. 

Guevara was executed on October 9, 1967 in Bolivia.

 

Update on the national nonviolent uprising in Iran

Change is underway in Iran.

Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, was arrested in Iran by the Morality police on September 13, 2022. They beat her badly, left her in a coma, and she died on September 16th. She was beaten to death for not properly wearing her hijab. A little bit of her hair was visible. 

News of her extrajudicial killing at the hand of agents of the Islamist regime in Iran sparked nationwide protests. Iranians are writing a new chapter in the history of their country. Let us listen, and take actions in solidarity with this freedom movement

Listen to my speech about the murder of #MahsaAmini and pass the message to all your politicians.
Retweets this video by tagging those Western female politicians who obeyed forced hijab in their meeting with &.#مهسا_امینی@OsloFFpic.twitter.com/4WHE4L7kT1

— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) October 7, 2022

There are nationwide strikes underway that are spreading. Official communications are being hacked into. There is a real chance that the Islamist regime in Iran is coming to an end.

The bazaar is going on strike in #Tehran. Stores closed all over the capital.

Today is a day of revolution.#Mahsa_Amini⁩ ⁧#مهسا_امینی‌⁩
⁦#IranRevolution⁩ pic.twitter.com/PpJMajjOEi

— NUFDI (@NUFDIran) October 8, 2022

On September 23rd and 24th this blog posted two entries on events unfolding in Iran and called for solidarity with Iranian protesters, and to listen to Iranian women, who have been at the forefront of the protests.

BREAKING: Islamic Republic’s state-owned TV network hacked during a Khamenei address and the message: “The blood of our youth is dripping from your fingers.” Another message displayed: Rise up and Join Us.#مهسا_امینی#MahsaAmini pic.twitter.com/GliPMHUgJo

— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) October 8, 2022

What follows are Tweets that we have amplified in solidarity. Sharing them here to provide this blog's audience an idea of what is happening in Iran, and solidarity from the Cuban diaspora.

CFC calls on #Cubans to show solidarity with the brave people of #Iran fighting for #freedom. Their protest anthem's gone viral like #PatriaYVida; now its composer's been arrested same as @MaykelOsorbo349. https://t.co/YfCJafS7iI #IranProtests2022 #MahsaAmini #ShervinHajipour 1/3

— Center for a Free Cuba (@cubacenter) October 6, 2022

The Tweets speak for themselves.

This is Iran three weeks into a spontaneous non-violent uprising sparked by the murder of an innocent young woman, #MahsaAmini, by "morality police" for having her hijab on, but showing a little hair. #IranRevolution #IranProtests #مهسا_امینی https://t.co/YMmVUjSN9Y

— John Suarez ن (@johnjsuarez) October 5, 2022

Let us listen, share, and amplify. Make sure that our Iranian sisters and brothers seeking freedom know that they are not alone, and that the world is watching.

2022:

Islamic Republic is falling.

“Woman, Life, Liberty” is returning to Iran.#زن_زندگی_آزادی #MahsaAmini #IranRevolution #مهسا_امینی

pic.twitter.com/GSnjmYACYc

— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) October 4, 2022

The Cuban government echoed the conspiracy theories of their allies in Tehran denying the agency of the Iranian people, and we called them out on it.

Castro regime is denying agency to the Iranian people. Official media claims #IranProtests2022 should be blamed on USA & other Western Democracies. (See in thread below ) Havana has a long track record of backing mullahs in Iran. https://t.co/ybUnmWcR7Z #MahsaAmini#IranProtests https://t.co/uzUhL5voXf

— John Suarez ن (@johnjsuarez) September 30, 2022

We listened to the Iranian protesters, and heard statements by them that resonated with the experiences of many Cubans.

This message by @AlinejadMasih on events unfolding in Iran resonates with many Cubans with the role many Western countries play to prop up the Castro dictatorship. Stop saving these brutal and dictatorial regimes. https://t.co/1uZyd6mRzH

— John Suarez ن (@johnjsuarez) September 24, 2022

Signs are emerging that change is coming. Many Iranians are paying with their lives to defy the dictatorship.

Picking up inspiring indications that the protests in Iran are gathering strength. The BBC reporter concluded, “Who knows where it will end?” Decent people all over the world must hope it will end with the toppling of the disgusting Ayatollahs and their Islamic tyranny.

— Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) October 8, 2022